The Dead Don't Die

Jarmusch a créé des personnages sur mesure pour sa troupe d'acteurs emblématique et les laisse réagir de manière drôle et légère aux éléments que nous connaissons des films d'horreur de zombies. Sur des notes de riffs mystérieux de guitare, comme ceux de Dead Man, mais avec un rythme narratif légèrement plus rapide, avec Tom Waits jouant un homme de la forêt observant de loin la fin du monde, Iggy Pop jouant un rôle de pur zombie, buvant le café d'une femme de ménage fraîchement éventrée avec ses tripes sanglantes, et ne négligeant pas l'enthousiasme et la curiosité des jeunes geeks du genre. Une chimie sympathique entre la paire de flics Murray/Driver, représentant deux générations de héros de tragédie comique à la Jarmusch. Un divertissement agréable avec des scènes gore surprenamment complètes, certes rien de révolutionnaire, mais une approche alternative des choses connues. Pour les fans inconditionnels de Jarmusch, qui autrefois critiquaient la « commercialité »  de Night on Earth, c'est une autre pause de Jim. Quant à savoir si cela rapportera de l'argent à Universal dans les multiplex, ça, je ne sais pas - pour les jeunes amateurs de popcorn, c'est un peu trop démodé et peu dynamique malgré le nombre impressionnant de morts et les effets spéciaux numériques de qualité, et les fans de Jarmusch ne les fréquentent pas. [Cannes] (15/05/2019)

The Dead Don’t Die is a slow, hipster zombie satire based on repetition of the same jokes and situations which constantly makes fun of the fact that it is a slow, hipster satire based on repetition of the same jokes and situations. It sometimes works very well, sometimes not so much. In the context of Jim Jarmusch’s earlier genre deconstructions, the film is inspiring (not only are genre conventions exaggerated, but are also commented upon by the actors, who step out of their roles and express their opinions on the screenplay) thanks to a cast that has superbly mastered deadpan humor and numerous references to (Romero’s) zombie horror movies and other old films (a headstone with the name Samuel Fuller inscribed on it) and it is fairly entertaining throughout its running time. The film is neither a summer hit nor the peak of Jarmusch’s filmography (it is sloppy especially visually and in the interconnection/variation of individual motifs), where The Dead is found in the paradoxical position of a film that is simultaneously his least and most serious work (the planet is in a state of decay and in order for it to regain its balance, humans will have to get out of the way), but I rather imagine it is not the absolute failure that the responses from Cannes warned against. 75% (27/06/2019)

Jarmusch on auto-pilot. It’s quite fun, with weird characters that walk, ride and stand in a town affected by a zombie apocalypse, while throwing funny one-liners. But when you see all that talent together, you want more. #KVIFF2019 (02/07/2019)

The talented Jim Jarmusch serves up a zombie comedy with a perfect cast, it feels like all the money was spent on the actors, but not much left for the film itself. It has rather ugly visuals, a very slow pace (slower than zombies), almost no gore, minimal tension and atmosphere, and the only thing that sort of works are the jokes, but even those don't wake you up from your micro-sleep. The director knew that a lot of people would be bored, so he snuck in at least a few movie references to keep the audience entertained. Didn’t like it. 40% (05/09/2019)

Very weak. Excellent potential, but a purely average result. While some of the individual moments are fine, like all the scenes with Tilda, the rest of the actors behave exactly as the audience likes. It's not enough. (04/07/2019)

“Cooofffeee..." A great comedy, but it’s certainly not for everyone. Jarmusch doesn't deny himself, and so the humor is drier than dry, but if you're on his wave, it's irresistible at the same time, and from start to the very end, the film offers one opportunity after another to burst out in laughter. Bill Murray and Adam Driver are absolutely amazing, and the apathy with which everyone involved approaches both the causes and consequences of the zombie apocalypse is irresistible, just like Iggy Pop as the best undead character that a film screen has ever hosted. (05/07/2019)

Tant que Jim Jarmusch continue de lâcher des références à la culture pop en veux-tu en voilà sur les films d’horreur (ou pas) classiques et leurs créateurs, des clins d’œil blagueurs sur les tendances modernes (comme le service de livraison WUPS) ou bien qu’il brise plus ou moins le quatrième mur entre le spectateur et l’action du film, tout va pour le mieux et on se marre bien. Par contre, si le public doit implorer Jim de lui fournir des personnages intéressants et attachants, ou encore si l’intrigue n’a même pas un minimum de logique, ça devient décevant. Et c'est sans parler du fait que JJ recopie presque mot pour mot la critique « romérovienne » de la société de consommation et la répète sans cesse. Certes, The Dead Don’t Die est un film amusant et on est content de le voir au ciné, mais il n’y a aucun miracle cette fois-ci, moi qui fondait beaucoup d'espoirs sur M. Jarmusch. (07/07/2019)

Un film de zombies expérimental, intellectuel et ironique réalisé par un réalisateur qui méprise les films de zombies commerciaux standards, et ça se voit. La déconstruction volontaire des règles du genre des zombies, le renversement des conventions et des stéréotypes semblent plus être le fruit d'une mauvaise humeur que d'une démarche novatrice, et le résultat est un film clairement anti-divertissant qui semble être fait au hasard, avec un scénario délibérément paresseux rempli de répétitions et de personnages sous-exploités se réduisant à une satire sociale épuisée et superficielle ainsi qu'à quelques méta-blagues, avec un rythme plus paresseux que la marche traînante des morts-vivants, et qui cible les spectateurs qui, dans la plupart des cas, ne vont probablement même pas le regarder en raison du sujet choisi. (05/10/2020)

The Dead Don't Die is my second encounter with Jim Jarmusch after Coffee and Cigarettes, and I have to say that I didn't find the director to my liking in this case either. From the start, the atmosphere of a small, sleepy town in the middle of nowhere is built up quite decently, and to the sounds of the country hit “The Dead Don't Die”, we are introduced to the various inhabitants, with everything slowly but surely leading up to the terrifying invasion of the undead. I thought the film would be laced with floor-to-ceiling black humour, but I found most of the jokes and morbid innuendo dull – the scene that amused me the most was the first zombie attack and the Chardonnay-loving woman beyond the grave. Even the slight allusion to Adam Driver's involvement in Star Wars and the fact that he was driving a Smart Car didn't help matters much. Of all the characters, I was most taken with the mysterious Tilda Swinton, though the ending of her line was very bizarre. I'm sorry, but the (obviously present) charm of Jarmusch's latest effort missed me by a large margin. (09/07/2019)

That Jarmusch has taken the reins of zombie horror isn't really all that surprising. It's not the first time he's decided to paraphrase a pure genre film, see Dead Man, Only Lovers Left Alive, or Limits of Control. The problem is that the aforementioned films still managed to exist on their own, allowing their characters to coexist in the distinctive Dada universe where the stories in question took place. The Dead Don't Die is pure and simply a parody of the contemporary mainstream, its characters, practices, exuberant self-reflection, pop culture references, futile attempts at socio-cultural and ecological relevance, and repetition of centuries-old schemas. While the simple method of portraying all these aspects, albeit in a completely unspectacular manner and with actors who alternate dry declamations with unbearable overacting, achieves the desired results in places, it also fails to carry the whole film. The problem is that, unlike Jarmusch's previous films, DDD doesn't contain that distinctive universe where its story takes place and where its events would make some kind of sense. In this way, The Dead Don't Die is really just a pouting poke at the commercial cinematic present, but one that it helps co-create instead of mounting active resistance against it from the barricades of auteur independent film. For as the saying goes: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. PS: anyway, clearly the best joke of the film is that the naked zombie character is played by the same actress who played the famous naked zombie in the original Night of the Living Dead from 1968. Too bad you can only pick up on that if you read the trivia. (04/10/2019)

The American-Swedish movie The Dead Don't Die proves all the good titles for zombie horror movies are probably exhausted. This movie is Jarmusch's attempt at a zombie horror, although he failed. It was an attempt where the most positive thing was that popular actors and singers wanted to be in it because Jim Jarmusch was involved and, unfortunately, that is all the movie has to offer. (18/09/2019)

I don't really seek out zombie movie – in fact I tend to avoid them – but in this case the director's name was enough to guarantee me that it would be something more than just a mere killing spree. Fortunately, I wasn't wrong and in the end I quite enjoyed this cruelly parodic statement about the bleak state of the contemporary world, where almost all people constantly succumb tor consumerist cravings like some kind of gluttonous zombies. I was amazed at how masterfully Jim Jarmusch managed to touch so many raw nerves at the end. (75%) (10/02/2023)